schooooool

A little about my students:

I had originally wanted to be placed in a primary school when I applied to the assistantship program. After having been placed in a collège, (age 10-15 or 6th-9th grade) I was a little bit disappointed. I had figured that in primary school, I would have to use a lot of French because the students would only know a little bit of English.  I knew that I could handle the basics, like colors and animals, etc. And i thought that in a collège, seeing how most of the students have had at least a few years of English, that they wouldn’t need any French, that we would be going over harder grammar things, etc.

What a disappointment. I have kids in 3eme who have all taken English for at least 3 years, with this year being their fourth, who do not understand a word of what I say. I briefly introduce myself: name, age, nationality, where I am from, hobbies, brothers and sisters, pets…and so on. And they barely understand when I tell them that I am from the United States of America. There are even students who have taken English for as long as I have taken French: 8 years. And those students don’t understand what I say either.

There is also the strangeness of the grammar that they have learned. They have all learned a British English grammar. So they talk differently, with different vocabulary. The one that gets me the most is when the teacher tells them to get out their « rubbers » or erasers. And I giggle. Because that does not mean eraser to me. Or to most Americans. Or the way that they have been taught to say « I’ve got. » For example « I’ve got two brothers and one sister. » But if they don’t have something they say « I haven’t (got). » Example: « I haven’t (got) a dog. » There are times when I say « I have a car. » And they don’t understand what I am saying until repeat myself with « I’ve got a car. » It is very frustrating to have to completely adapt my own style of speaking to British English so that these kids will understand me. I already speak sooooo slowly and enunciate like crazy. But they cannot make me British. There are again times when I say something and they don’t understand it until the teacher repeats it in their British English accent.

In each class there are one or two good students, students who actually care and are interested. I’ve noticed a big difference between students in the US and in France, especially concerning language. Since two additional languages are required in France, many times they are languages that students don’t want to take. They get a choice, but if they don’t want to learn any language, they are out of luck because they have to learn two! But in the US, a language is not obligatory (at least it wasn’t in my school.) however if I had plans of going on to a university, most require at least 3 or 4 years of a foreign language, so knowing that I wanted to continue my education, I took a language. Because language is not forced upon us, i feel like the students who take a language are taking it because they want to, because they have a passion and because they care!

I had some of my best and worst classes the past two days. Students that really understood what I was saying and then students who wrote a list of numbers 1 through 10 when I asked them to make a list of ten adjectives. Really? It makes me wonder if I am trying hard enough to let them understand me. I say at the beginning of each new class that it is VERY important that they let me know if they don’t understand and that they can do this by asking me to repeat slower or asking me “whats the French/English for…?” but sometimes they don’t even understand that. And I actually got mad at two students today for laughing, they were really only laughing because they didn’t understand but couldn’t tell me and didn’t understand me when I asked them what was funny and why they were laughing. And then I felt like a mean teacher.

lounging in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris